The demand for inexpensive, easily accessible and compact long term information storage systems continues to increase. In the past, the demand for long term information storage was met by archiving paper records. Today, however, the volume of information requiring storage makes this solution impractical. Recently, the demand for long term information storage has been met by magnetic media information storage systems and optical information storage systems. Although these systems have excellent long term information retention capability, in some applications they are not sufficiently compact. So, a current trend is to use non-volatile semiconductor memory for long term information storage.
Non-volatile semiconductor memory is compact and permits rapid access to the stored information. Information is stored in a non-volatile semiconductor memory as electronic charge. The magnitude of the electronic charge is used to represent a binary value. For instance, in some memory systems the presence of charge represents a binary one, and the absence of charge represents a binary zero. In other memory systems, a larger charge magnitude represents a binary one, and a smaller charge magnitude represents a binary zero. In either system, charge isolation is critical to successful long term information storage.
Charge isolation implies that once an electronic charge is located in a structure, the charge remains at that location indefinitely. In the art, charge is located in a structure such as a transistor having a control gate, a floating gate, a drain, a source, and a dielectric composite insulator interposed between the control gate and the floating gate. In operation, the control gate induces an electronic charge to locate at the floating gate. Once the charge is induced at the floating gate, for the transistor device to successfully operate as a long term information storage device, the charge must remain at the floating gate for a long period of time. As devices are scaled to create higher density memory, the thickness of the dielectric is reduced to maintain the same coupling. As the thickness is reduced, the ability to prevent electron migration through the insulator becomes difficult.
The rate of this charge leakage defines the time that a non-volatile semiconductor memory can function as a long term information storage device.
To successfully substitute for magnetic or optical storage devices as a long term information storage device, a non-volatile semiconductor memory device, such as an EPROM, EEPROM, or a flash EPROM, must store information reliably for at least ten years, so any charge leakage from the floating gate is detrimental to the use of non-volatile semiconductor memory as a long term information storage device.
For these and other reasons there is a need for the present invention.